


Do Not Go Softly

by taichara



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 00:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5353472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even bloodless and fallen, Zack has his priorities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Go Softly

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _awaiting the afterlife_

_... i thought it'd be faster than this._

For something that was so final, death certainly seemed to be taking its own sweet time.

What a change from aeons -- moments -- before, when Zack, his life's blood pooling beneath him and making him turn to scarlet-slicked ice, had struggled to draw another breath, to just _hang on_ long enough to cough, to whisper what little he could to Cloud as he'd leaned over Zack's ravaged body.

Cloud had noticed. Had reacted. Had clutched at his hand, already losing its last dregs of strength, and was clinging still, the half-promise of awareness in those blue eyes almost lost again beneath the tears he didn't seem to notice. Cloud had clawed within a hair's-breadth of waking up and, now -- because of _him_ \-- was a wide-open target, a fluffy chocobo-down bundle of sick and trauma out in the open clinging to a corpse and just waiting for one of those arsehole ShinRa snipers to put an end to him.

And there was nothing Zack could do about it.

He had to be dead by now. He was sure he wasn't breathing, and awareness of a pulse stopped ages ago; it was beyond him how he could see, now, and that long after the black veil had crept into his vision. He _had_ to be dead, and Cloud was clinging to a dead man's sword and a dead man's hand and he was going to pay for it with his own life --

_... damnit, Cloud, you need to go, you need to run ..._

_... don't stay here with me! i'm not going to be here any more ...! it's just a corpse ..._

The cold was seeping away, somehow. Slowly receding into something that was all-enfolding, all-embracing, and at the edge of his lingering thoughts Zack understood.

And as he was lifted on a green-golden tide, he knew what he could do.

_... Cloud, go. go._

The blue eyes blinked, the fluff shuddered as Cloud jerked once. Awareness shifting, changing, now it was Zack's turn to not let go. Not yet.

_i'll always be with you._

_let it go, and save yourself. for me._

_please, Cloud. run._

_i promise._

A shock through Cloud's still scattered wits -- he'd felt it, _felt_ that pain, Zack noted wonderingly -- and he staggered to his feet, hugging the massive blade to himself. But he could lift it.

Good.

There was nothing for Zack to hear, but Cloud surely did; his head jerked around, and then -- and then -- he crouched, touched Zack's cold cheek, his blood-soaked hair.

And, finally, he ran. 

And Zack let himself go into the Lifestream's patient embrace.

_i'll always be with you_


End file.
